More ambiguous black metal

The black metal that attracts me most is ambiguous black metal - black metal where you are never sure where you stand with regard to the transgressive fantasies of its creators. So I have always been drawn to the Meads of Asphodel who play around with the twisted interconnections between jihad, early Christianity and the occult. I just found out that there next release will be called 'The Murder of Jesus the Jew' which will take the band ever closer to some truly dangerous and antisemitic fantasies. They aren't NSBM - like most other smart black metal bands, they prefer to revel in voluptuous fantasies of hatred rather than permanently fixing their sites on any one category of persons - but you can easily see how they might be construed as one. Their record label has the following statement from Metatron from the Meads:

‘NSBM, has obvious grievances towards the Jews, hence its fascist Nazi imagery and stark one dimensional theology. Most NSBM owes much to cultural independence rather than blatant anti Semitism, but this very real and for most, disturbing genre is not necessarily [although by nature] aligned directly to the all consuming aura of Hitler.

Anti-Semitism at its root form is rooted to the early Roman Church, itself an extension of the Roman Empire, both subversive institutions of conversion by persuasion. The Romans levelled Jerusalem in 70BC, killing around a million Jews from a population of three million. With the Roman Empire in decline, its transformation into the Holy Roman Empire through the adopted Judaic cult of Jesus [eventually stripped of all its Judaism] was the next crucial factor in our perceptions of anti-Semitism today. The growth of early Christianity depended on its sellable nature to a Pagan Roman Audience; hence the blame for their Gods death [Jesus] could not be pointed towards a Roman [Pontius Pilate]. The blame was therefore placed firmly on the Jews, and Anti-Semitism was truly born. The Christian religion, already based on debatable foundations grew at an astonishing rate, consuming half the globe, and dragging its dark anti-Semitic guilt with it. The Jews were bundled in groups and ghettos throughout Europe, their main source of survival money lending and their drive to succeed gained wealth and business attributes worldwide. This was the bane of German Fascism, a twisted excuse to drag a nation into the bowels of war.

The whole Jewish question during Hitler's reign is one of the Holocaust, indiscriminate extermination, and calculated cruelty. The systematic destruction of a race had no name at the time, so one was invented for it, Genocide. Whether you accept History's stark truth of gas chambers and deliberate mass murder, or take the revisionist view, [that it never occurred] is neither there nor there. What is important is the freedom to discus without prejudice individual views, and NSBM is a medium for a minority to express those views. It is your choice whether to listen ,but to silence this view is to become the very beast you attempt to muzzle.

This is a classic example of ambiguous black metal discourse: on the one hand it scorns antisemitism as a lunatic Christian invention, on the other hand it rejects suppression of NSBM in the name of free speach. This is where black metal's frisson lies, in never turnin away from evil but never wholeheartedly embracing it either. I can live with this - sometimes only just - but you can see how in the wrong hands this is mighty dangerous stuff.

Comments

[Matthew C]

I like ambiguous metal too.

I really like Drudkh and Hate Forest who seem to be in the 'are they/aren't they NSBM?' camp.

[Invisible Oranges]

Most NSBM is so low in quality as to pose no threat to anything but musicality. The principles it espouses are already enshrined in right-wing movements worldwide. Many of these are institutionalized and gaining significant political traction (across Europe, especially). Men in suits will always be more dangerous than boys in corpsepaint.

Additionally, I see no dissonance between supporting free speech and disagreeing with modes of expression that it protects. In fact, such ideological conflict is fundamental to democracy and free societies.

[CW]

IO Makes a good point; however, i would say that these NSBM can be dangerous on a more personal level in much the same way as drunken louts can still kick your head in on a friday night if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wouldnt want to be around the crowds they draw.

Though i too enjoy this dodgy area, drudkh, bone awl, loits all seem to just about walk the line.

[daven]

C'mon- they're antisemites and hate your guts. Switching up the emperor's new clothes with weasel words doesn't make him any less of a racist.

[Matthew C]

Daven, Wagner was an anti-semite, but his music is definitely worth listening to.

Of course, musically there is an infinity between NSBM and Wagner, but Burzum and a few other bands have real quality.

[jk]

I think you should work harder to discern the difference between "ambiguous" and "evasive." The quoted speaker says that acceptance of the historical facts of the Holocaust and non-acceptance of the historical facts of the Holocaust are equivalent positions. That is not ambiguous at all. Perhaps the ambiguity instead lies within yourself as someone who likes a genre that may not like you back.

[a]

It's always striking how bad and incoherent writing by black metal musicians generally is.

[JD Quintus]

Just to clarify...anyone who has read Metatrons lyrics & still thinks we're a racist band obviously has the IQ of a dead plant.